Chapter 1936 — Back to School

"It was like this..." Wei Zhao began, and he recounted to Chen Yutian the chance encounter with the drug dealers—though he left out the delicate matter of Wang Xinyan going off to relieve herself. At the end he came straight to the point: "I used silver needles to deal with those two. I asked around about who was behind them, and it's the Red Conch organization. Only, they'll suffer brief amnesia, so they may not remember anything about the deal..."

Chen Yutian nodded. He knew Wei Zhao's methods well enough, and he roughly understood why Wei Zhao would want to ask about Red Conch, so he did not press further. Brief amnesia was no concern—so long as the two were confirmed to be drug dealers, that was enough. The finer details of the transaction were trifles.

"So the drugs are in this case?" Chen Yutian asked, glancing at the leather suitcase on the ground.

"Yes. Take it back with you—but handle the case together with Yang Huaijun and Qiu Lingshan. They've just arrived in Donghai; cracking this case will help them get a firm foothold," Wei Zhao told Chen Yutian.

"No problem." Chen Yutian nodded, and pointedly said not a word about whether there was any cash involved. In his view, the dealers might well have used phone transfers; and even if there had been cash and Wei Zhao had taken it, Chen Yutian would not have raised the question himself. "Chief, why don't you and Sister-in-law Xinyan take the helicopter back together? Your mission is as good as done, and you caught two drug dealers besides. If you weren't so set on keeping your name out of things, that one piece of merit alone would earn you a great many credits. So we'll just have to count you as the first to complete the mission..."

"Ha, all right. I was just thinking it was about time to head back anyway," Wei Zhao said with a nod.

Hearing Instructor Chen call her Sister-in-law Xinyan struck Wang Xinyan as very strange, but she made no effort to correct him... Her relationship with Wei Zhao did seem to be growing more than friendly by the day...

Wei Zhao packed up briefly, and Chen Yutian came over to help him take down the tent. In no time they were finished; the two dealers were tossed into the vehicle; and the helicopter's engine soon turned over, carrying them down the mountain...

No one raised any objection to Wei Zhao and Wang Xinyan flying back to claim first place. They all knew that on the merit of catching the drug dealers alone, Wei Zhao had earned far more than the credits awarded for first place—but Wei Zhao kept a low profile and had no wish to make a show of such things.

That same night, Chen Yutian telephoned Yang Huaijun and asked him to come collect the men. As a rule, when border defense troops caught drug dealers, they handed them over to the local police for trial.

When Yang Huaijun heard that Wei Zhao had gone up the mountain for field training and casually scooped up two drug dealers along the way, he was momentarily speechless. Still, he was deeply grateful that Wei Zhao wanted to give him and Qiu Lingshan a share of the credit. He drove over that very night and took the two dealers away, and as for what followed, Wei Zhao and Chen Yutian had no need to trouble themselves...

As Yang Huaijun led the dealers away, his feelings were peculiar indeed. Wei Zhao really was something else! Only a few days ago he had finished telling the man about the drug dealers and Red Conch, and now Wei Zhao had casually brought the dealers back with him?

Recalling Qiu Lingshan's words—that any case handed to Wei Zhao was a case that would be solved—Yang Huaijun was utterly convinced. It really was true!

He had known Wei Zhao was formidable, but he had never expected him to be this formidable. Finding an enemy in the jungle and finding a criminal in the city were two entirely different matters, after all—the methods and means of investigation differed as well. Yet where Wei Zhao was concerned, they were all the same.

It was still early. Chen Yutian had someone drive up an SUV and told Wei Zhao and Wang Xinyan to get in and rest. The vehicle was spacious; with the seats folded down, there was no problem sleeping at all.

Wei Zhao's first thought, however, was anything but innocent—it went straight to the idea of fooling around in the car...

Wang Xinyan had thought of it too, but said nothing. She knew very well where things stood between her and Wei Zhao. The two of them often drifted into little moments of ambiguity, but in truth their relationship was entirely proper... Because drug dealers had been discovered on the mountain, the remaining field training exercises for several departments were canceled, and they moved straight on to the next stage: drill formations and military boxing competitions...

When the military training ended, everyone returned to school, and the freshman gala was about to raise its curtain...

Military training, the freshman gala, elections for student union cadres, sign-ups for extracurricular clubs, the sports meet, the arts festival—one after another they came, close on each other's heels.

For the Department of Medicine, the freshman gala was a headache every single year! The performances at the gala were generally organized by major rather than by class, so a major usually had at least five classes, and even at a pinch they could scrape together a single number. But the Department of Medicine had only one class, and a very small one at that, yet it too had to put on a performance—and so the problem landed on the shoulders of every class president in turn.

Especially since Bai Weituo had made a bet with Zhang Duopan: whoever scored highest on the freshman gala performance and took a good ranking would be free to pursue He Meiyue, while whoever scored lower would be automatically out of the running.

"Brother Lin, Little Dao, Shengji—help me think of something, will you?" The moment military training ended and he was back in the dorm, Bai Weituo was pacing in circles, frantic. He had not given the matter much thought before, but now that it was actually upon him, he realized just how hard it was to put together a performance.

"You've got a good voice—go do a solo," Song Xiaodao said, somewhat helplessly. "We've got no artistic sense. Having us think of something for you would be the same as sabotaging you."

"A solo..." Bai Weituo shook his head. He did sing well, but he had no particularly striking style. At a smaller gala—say, an arts festival in middle or high school—he might have had a shot at a ranking. But on a university campus brimming with talent, a solo without any distinctive flair made placing at all an extremely difficult thing.

And Bai Weituo knew as well that at freshman galas over the years, the ones who took rankings were generally group performances, not solo acts. For a freshman, being able to unite a group was the real skill; individual ability counted for little.

"Then do a chorus," Wei Zhao said. "Those who can sing, sing; those who can't can do harmony or lip-sync. Anyone can go ah-ah-ah-ah."

"Uh..." Bai Weituo was taken aback for a moment—but then, credit where it was due, Wei Zhao's idea was actually a good one! Bai Weituo had seen concerts by pop stars, after all: the star sang lead up front, while a chorus stood behind providing harmony or singing a small part.

If he took the lead vocal and had the whole class go up to provide backing harmonies, that would count as a group performance too. At the thought, Bai Weituo's eyes lit up. "Then that's what we'll do. I'll go talk to the classmates later..."

For the fastest updates, please read without pop-ups.